3) As for contact, it all depends on who you are training with. some friends I have been training with going on about nine years,we all use full contact on each other, others we do not... but we know we can take it.

The dojo that I go to teaches mixed styles but the emphasis in on goju ryu.

As for sparing we do a few different styles depending on the class level starting with slow single exchange then moving to medium contact sparing and newly started is a type of fighting that is focused solely on defense and take downs. Where it is an attacker vs. a defender, which is different from normal sparing where there can be two attackers or two defenders.

Cheers Kimira

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"Following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been." (Tool)

While being punched by guys full contact wearing boxing gloves I recieved a trickle of a nose bleed and was knocked down to one knee once before quitting that gym(I got married and had to quit everything that involved me... for a while.)

Anyway, while sparring medium power I have had my nose broken once and almost twice. The same thing happened both times. I juked my head into the punch that had terrific control behind it but as I drove my face into a head on collision with his fist my face got blasted harder than it did in the boxing ring.

Sure over the long haul boxers get the worst of it but with our minimal medium power gloves I got bloodied more in the dojo.

Hence, full power with those little gloves Century sells for light sparring would seem to me a peculiar thing to do.

Oh and how about that feeling between right after you get blasted in the nose and when blood gushes out. Your holding your face calling, "Break! Break!" Just trying not to get blood all over the mat. Then at work the next day with my two black eyes I answer all inquiries by saying, "Do not endeavor to understand me mortal!" LOL

In the beginning we do medium contact, later, after 5.kyu we progress to full contanct. Since our style includes head butts, knees, elbows, eye jabs, ear smashes, biting,foot trapping,... we must use kind of ''restraint'' in sparring and try to be somewhere between the life protecting situation and the LA LA land even its not realism which we always strive torward, sparring is very important, since if you have never been kicked or punched in a ''chaos'' situation of a sparring, never been punched with full force, no cool or ''advanced'' street, kyusho or whatever techniques will ever help you. Bulid guts and balls first, rest comes naturally later... still, we try not to overdo sparring, since one can easly fall into a sport mode, which is not what we are looking for in the martial arts.

We do empty hand, stick, knife (usually with markers), kama - with padded blades , bo, nunchaku, empty handed against weapons sparring (yeah, u loose most of the time ,... Sometimes we'd progress from stick - knife - empty hands (kick - punch - grapple - ground)...We also create scenarios, where we add different HAPV in the middle of sparring...We also do 1:2, 1:3, ... or mass fights 20:20 or more. Now this is lots of fun. Look at the end of the video...

This video shows a little bit of how we train, kata, knife, stick, kyusho-tuite, full contact kata applications,... wasnt intended to show our sparring but more of general work...still some can be seen in the beggining and at the end.

We use little to no protection gear. Mouth piece in mandatory, everything else by choice, depends on the grade of course. Few advanced students like protection gear. Otherwise we have face shield head guard,body protectors, shin guards, elbow, knee and groin guards... classical Ryukyu kempo or FMA sparring protection gear.